CHAPTER THREE
THEY stared at each other for a long, frozen moment before Khaled jerked his head away.
‘Leave me…’ he gritted, his teeth clenched, sweat pearling on his forehead. Lucy ignored his plea, dropping to her knees in front of him.
‘Is it your knee?’
‘Of course it is,’ he retorted. Both white-knuckled hands were curled protectively around his leg. ‘It’s just acting up. Leave me. There’s nothing you can do.’
‘Khaled—’
‘There’s nothing I want you to do,’ Khaled cut her off. Lucy looked up at him, and saw misery and fury battling in his eyes. ‘Go.’
‘You must have painkillers,’ Lucy said firmly. ‘Let me get them for you.’
Khaled was silent, and Lucy felt the struggle within him, although she didn’t fully understand it. Finally he jerked a shoulder towards the bedside table, and Lucy went quickly to rummage through it. When she found the small brown bottle, she experienced a jolt of alarmed surprise: it contained a powerful narcotic. A prescription for a powerful narcotic.
Wordlessly she checked the dosage label, and shook two pills out into her hand. She fetched a glass of water from the en suite bathroom and handed both to Khaled, who took them silently.
A few moments ticked by in taut silence and then Khaled eased back onto the bed, his hands braced behind him. ‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly. ‘You can go now.’
‘The narcotic doesn’t take effect that quickly.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I can’t leave you in such a vulnerable state,’ Lucy replied. ‘As a medical professional—’
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ Khaled snapped. ‘You don’t think I know what I’m doing? You don’t think I’ve been dealing with this for four years?’ He glared up at her, his eyes flashing fury. Lucy took a step back.
‘Khaled—’
‘Go.’ It came out as a roar of anguish, a plea, and Lucy almost, almost went. But she couldn’t leave him like this, couldn’t walk away from the pain in his eyes and the unanswered questions in hers.
So she sat across from him on a low, cushioned stool and waited.
After a long moment Khaled let out a ragged laugh. ‘I dreamed of seeing you again, but not like this. Never like this.’
Shock rippled through her, cold and yet thrilling. ‘You dreamed of seeing me again?’ she repeated, the scepticism in her voice obvious to both of them.
‘Yes.’ Khaled spoke simply, starkly, before he shook his head. ‘But I don’t want you here now, Lucy. Not like this. So go.’
‘No.’
He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘You know I can’t make you go.’
‘No.’
‘But I would if I could.’
‘I gathered that.’ She paused, sifting the memories and recollections in her mind. ‘Has your knee been bothering you the whole time we’ve been here?’
‘It’s just a flare up,’ he said flatly, but Lucy thought she understood why he’d looked so grim. He’d been in pain.
Another few moments passed; the only sound was Khaled’s ragged breathing. Finally he pushed himself off the bed and limped stiffly to a table by the window, where Lucy saw a decanter of whiskey and a couple of tumblers.
‘You shouldn’t drink that on top of a narcotic,’ she said as Khaled poured himself a finger of scotch. He smiled grimly as he tossed it back and poured another.
‘I have a strong stomach.’
Lucy watched him quietly for a moment. ‘Everyone was told your injury wasn’t too serious,’ she finally said. ‘Yet obviously it is if you’re still suffering.’
Khaled shook his head, the movement effectively silencing her. ‘I told you, this was nothing more than a flare up.’
‘How long do they last?’
He turned to face her, a smile twisting his features. ‘You’re not my doctor, Lucy.’
‘Are you having some form of physiotherapy?’ she pressed, and he poured some more whiskey.
‘Yesterday you said you wanted to talk to me. Now seems like a good opportunity.’
‘Why, Khaled?’ Lucy asked softly. ‘Why did no one know the truth?’
‘Why,’ he repeated, swinging round to face her, ‘don’t you tell me what I supposedly need to know and then get out?’ He took a deep swallow of his drink. ‘I’d like to be alone.’
Lucy hesitated. This wasn’t exactly the way she’d wanted to have this conversation, yet she recognised that there might not be another opportunity. She drew a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Fine. Khaled…when you left England four years ago I was pregnant.’ She saw a current of some deep, fathomless emotion flicker in Khaled’s eyes before he stilled, became expressionless. Dangerous.
There was no way she knew of to make this information more palatable, less surprising, so she ploughed on. ‘You have a child, Khaled. A son.’
The silence ticked by for a full, taut minute. Khaled just stared at her, a blank, unnerving stare that made Lucy want to explain, apologise, but she did neither. She just waited.
‘A son,’ he finally repeated, his voice still so terribly neutral. ‘And you did not seek to apprise me of this fact until now?’
‘Actually, I did.’ Lucy kept her voice even. Now that she’d told him, now that he knew, she felt calm, composed. In control. All the things she’d wanted to be all along—all the things she’d wanted to be four years ago. ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant until after you left,’ she continued. ‘And, when I did, I tried to get in touch with you. Your mobile number had been disconnected—’
‘That’s all?’ Khaled bit out. ‘One attempted phone call?’
‘Not quite,’ Lucy returned coolly. ‘I sent an e-mail to you in Biryal. I got the address off the government website—’
‘You sent an e-mail to a generic government e-mail address and expected me to get it?’ Khaled interjected, raking a hand through his still sweat-dampened hair. ‘With the kind of information it contained, it was undoubtedly dismissed as a tabloid’s ploy or the ravings of a scorned mistress.’
‘And isn’t that what I was?’ Lucy flashed, her own temper rising to meet his. ‘Except I didn’t happen to be raving.’
They glared at each other for a long moment and then with a sudden, ragged sigh Khaled turned away. ‘What’s his name?’ The question surprised Lucy, softened her.
‘Sam.’
‘Sam,’ he repeated, and there was a note of wonder in his voice that made him seem somehow vulnerable, and made Lucy ache.
‘He’s three years old,’ she continued quietly. ‘He had his birthday four months ago.’
Khaled nodded slowly, his eyes on a distant horizon. From downstairs there came a sudden burst of raucous laughter that felt like an intrusion in the sudden cocoon of warmth Sam’s name had created.
Khaled straightened. ‘I’ll have to have a DNA test done.’
Lucy blinked. It was no more than she expected, but still it hurt. ‘Fine.’ She drew a breath. ‘Khaled, I didn’t tell you about Sam because I wanted something from you. You don’t need to worry—’ She broke off because Khaled was staring at her in what could only be disbelief, his eyes narrowed, his mouth no more than